It's the great, big, broad land 'way up yonder,
It's the forests where silence has lease;
It's the beauty that thrills me with wonder,
It's the stillness that fills me with peace.

— Robert W. Service, The Spell of the Yukon
This site is about getting locals and visitors out walking in Whitehorse.

Whitehorse is a great place to walk. Our trails provide endless variety, but it's not always obvious where trails are. I'm collecting resources for walkers: maps, walking events, ideas for walks, natural history resources ...

I'm also promoting walking in Whitehorse — trails, bridges and boardwalks need improvements; we need a walking point of view in local consultations; the community needs fiscal fairness for walking. If it's only me, it doesn't carry enough weight, so more people have to get involved. Talk walking with your friends, your community association, Mayor and Council, the Chamber of Commerce; make walking a bigger topic here.

And I examine walking tourism. If Yukon communities present a united 'walking' face to tourists, we'd all benefit from a sophisticated, nature loving style of tourists. And the communities would gain both tourist attractions and improved community facilities: nice trails! Many opportunities for community wellness and local prosperity for imaginative entrepreneurs.

Peter
Whitehorse, Yukon, Canada

whitehorsewalks.com HOME pjl at whitehorsewalks.com

• WALKING resources
Walks with others
Places to walk, guides, maps
Nature, geology, geography
Help, safety, ethics, media, contacts

• WALKING culture
Walking improvements needed
A walker's point of view
Guide to city government
Guide to other governments

• LEARN from others
Walkable cities, sustainable design
Walking, trails
Walking and wellness

ABOUT this site —— Site map
Photos © Peter Long


My Yukon PLANTS
Blue Moon

Recent site updates

Current consultations

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Current events



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December 27, 2013. Talk about walking

December 10, 2013. Looking for new winter walks now that wetlands are frozen? Here's the draft of a local walking trails map. With the new trail network that the city has built for us at the Whitehorse Cross Country Ski Club, possibilities abound. As a Hillcrest walker, I've suggested a couple of access routes from Hillcrest and given mileage for those.

Still to come is understanding the MOU between the city and the ski club and our rights to use trails. There are over 7,000 people living in neighbourhoods in the area. They need to be able to walk freely; the neighbourhood pass idea needs to be discussed openly so walkers can pass through the area with a minimum of disruption to club ski trails. As shown in my draft map, this is pretty easy to accommodate.

December 9, 2013. Speaking of winter walking...Why cold weather makes you pee

December 8, 2013. Draft 1 of walking in the Nordic center trail area.

This is about winter mountain biking but product suggestions are interesting for us winter walkers.

November 29, 2013. Walking in Washington, DC and Beyond. Some say that we don't walk far these days, not because of ability or desire but rather because of lack of time.

November 13, 2013. For snowy/icy trail walking, ice grips are indispensable, especially with spring's icy hilly trail sections. I use these Lee Valley ones all winter/spring: They have free shipping til nov 14th.

Yukon Energy says it's considering a new hydro dam and other options.

With the upcoming revisions to the Protected Areas By-law and changes to Territorial laws around off-road vehicles — and the effects on municiple ATV and snowmobile by-laws, I still think that a good walking startegy is needed. Best practices for increasing trail usage by hikers and walkers is an example of thinking positively. American Trails has a quick overview.

November 11, 2013. Yukon Government presents new acts around off-road motor vehicle use.
Party Standings: Yukon Party–12; New Democratic Party–6; Liberal Party–1

November 8, 2013. Mt. McIntyre recreation area is being updated with revised policy on use of city trails embedded within the Whitehorse Cross Country Ski Club trail system.

November 7, 2013. Jane Koepke wrote an interesting letter to the editor about the voices and expectations in community planning processes. See more on the process of lobbying. I personally try to balance being unrealistic with pushing for a walking vision — how can we make our town more walking friendly without lobbying, answering surveys, submitting proposals? As long as the process is open and fair, voices and expectations should be encouraged.

Endowment lands finalized. How will this affect McIntyre Creek Park? Will the city try to reopen Porter Creek D as Whistle Bend fills? For those that say this will never happen: we moved to Hillcrest in 1986, and as we walked the many trails and watched the new developments happening — McIntyre, Granger, Arkell, Logan, Copper Ridge, Ingram — we wondered who'd live in all the new houses there. Stay tuned as Whistle Bend fills....

The City's Trails and greenways committee is looking for new neighbourhood representatives. Please respond by 4:30 pm Monday December 2, 2013.

November 1, 2013. Parks and Protected Areas Bylaw: The City is putting a call out to community associations and stakeholders for a seat on the Parks & Protected Areas Bylaw Task Force, which will meet several times in 2014 to assist with recommendations for a new Bylaw. Please respond by November 28, 2013.

October 22, 2013. New: a page on the Mt. McIntyre recreation area. The City is looking at the need to start some of the Park Management Plans for the 2010 OCP parks. 3 of the 5 parks are in our Hillcrest neighbourhood. There's a great deal of possibilities with a mountain in our backyard. How can we, as a community, best look at this? I contend we need walking points of view in discussions.

The walkable city. From the comments "Cities become sprawled out when speculators in land values hold onto their newly acquired sites and force the tax payers investment in infrastructure to move away from the population centers. This is wasteful, as clearly pointed out by the speaker and it is also expensive in terms of the competition for available useful land created by these land monopolists. The fiercer competition for sites is due to their limited availability and so the city grows and wastes its most useful parts."

October 15, 2013. Cute video McIntyre walking. Search the word 'walk' on the site and there's some pretty interesting sketches.

Great web site I learned about today. City of Whitehorse's GIS open data is very useful resource! Open the KML versions with Google Earth and play.

A list of Autumn and winter walking festivals from a company recomended by a local walker who hiked the West Highland Trail in Scotland with them.

October 11, 2013. Whitehorse, the wilderness city: Request for proposals for developing a Marketing Strategy. Will we get input before they come back with proposals. Can we get a walking city into the strategy?

October 10, 2013. In discussions with the Ski Club I've updated the Logan Arkell Wetlands page to show a draft map of the trails to show new walking possibilities. The page will be in a draft situation as I update it.

October 8, 2013. Justice Minister urges Yellowknifers to take back the trails Referring to my September 29th, 2013 post below.

October 5, 2013. 2014 City budget

October 4, 2013. Urban sprawl or responsible growth?

Intepretation: Wildlife viewing has a strategy up for public review. It would be a key component to a Yukon walking tourism strategy. I updated this page and submitted it as a start of ideas for their strategy.

October 2, 2013. I've started a Site map page.

September 29, 2013. The article Police investigating sexual assault and this article How to design a city for women makes me wonder how our trails are for women. Do they feel safe? What would help?

September 28, 2013. I'm in Toronto and in today's Star I read Pedestrians take a back seat to fire hydrant where the columnist said "But some curmudgeons have yet to get with the program, like the tight-asses at Walking Toronto, who are always whinging about pedestrian obstacles." Naturally I followed up and found neat sites. I did wonder about a newspaper column dedicated to fixing 'problemsho was complaining about a group dedicated to fixing problems. Curious.

City of Toronto's website

  • Pedestrian Environment... a number of programs that affect the pedestrian environment
  • Walking... Toronto Walking Strategy was adopted by Toronto City Council in 2009. Its goal is to make Toronto a great walking city. Based on months of discussion with the public, external organizations, and relevant City divisions and agencies, the Toronto Walking Strategy includes visionary policy, infrastructure and programming to create a rich culture of walking in Toronto.

Walk Toronto.

  • In Toronto, advocacy organizations have been formed by transit users. They also exist for cyclists. There is even an organization that promotes electric vehicles. Unfortunately, for several years there were no groups advocating exclusively on behalf of pedestrians.

    This gap in the sustainable transportation ranks has now been filled. A circle of walking advocates and active transportation enthusiasts launched a Toronto-based pedestrian advocacy group at a meeting at Metro Hall on Feb. 13, 2013. Participants chose the name "Walk Toronto" for the group, and suggested directions in which Walk Toronto's advocacy could be effectively pursued. Toronto's Complete Streets movement is finally becoming 'complete'.
  • They maintain a page Toronto's walking resources
  • Walk Toronto's current events Facebook page Walking Toronto

September 26, 2013. A ridiculous number of us have no clue how much we walk every day.

September 24. 2013. From Whitehorse's bike people:

"if people come upon obvious trail obstructions (whether natural or unnatural) to simply take the 30 seconds to throw it off the trail so that no user comes upon it and is injured. These particular obstacles were obviously purposeful as they were placed very carefully and were every 2-3 feet. We can all work together to keep the trails safe for users. If hikers and walkers remove these small logs/sticks the biking community has more time to remove the large deadfall that falls over the trail. We'd like to concentrate our efforts on getting these big trees removed, so that walkers/riders, etc... don't create new braided trails to avoid obstacles. This "new trails" disturb plants, and cause unnecessary widening."

September 24, 2013. I've updated my Walking tourism page, its companion Community walking page and the Guide to other governments page. Still a draft. We really have a lot of work to do to be a walking destination.

Under the not too smart heading.... Mountain bikers have reported that there were incidents where people are placing obstacles on the trail, and if all trail users (runners, walkers, bikers) work together to keep the trail safe, we can avoid unnecessary injuries. "We hit it at the end of a ride with the darkness setting in. Luckily it was light enough to see the first log before anyone went flying. "

After the two recent motorized vehicle task forces and their emphasis on education and codes of ethics as a way of resolving conflicts, I looked, unsuccessfully, for a code of ethics on local vehicle club sites. Hopefully it doesn't take a bad accident before trail safety, trail ethics becomes a topic of discussion.

September 17, 2013. Katy says: Caution. Kids (not) walking. Rule # 1: Start walking yourself!

Katy goes on to say: Many people come to me as adults in despair, wishing that they had had one iota of health presented to them as children. In overzealous response, many of us are replacing our lack of natural movement with fitness, which can take care of one issue but creates others. Walking with your kids is free. No classes, special camps, or equipment required. No more excuses. Kids need more than "playing all day." They need to be able to walk quite a distance. Start your family training today. Their bones and brains will thank you!

With the various discussions around active transportation and redoing the Riverdale bridge so people don't have to wait in traffic, this seems along the line of my beliefs: you have to build walking as an enjoyable activity before people will walk for necessity.

Also along this line of enjoyment outdoors is this National Post story: Alberta 'forest school' gets students out of stuffy classrooms for lessons on the practicalities of life.

September 10. I've updated my Range Road submission. It will be interesting to see whether there is a trails visionary person involved at a level high enough to see the role of this area in the walking life of the city. Public Kick-Off Event is scheduled for September 21, 2013 from 2-5 pm.

September 9, 2013. The city has posted the results of the first version of the survey. Here's a Google Earth view of the city's desires. Quite an interesting read is the admin report on the survey.

"The City has a long-standing and successful working relationship with the Klondike Snowmobile Association, but the other two motorized groups are relatively new. During the course of implementation, the City should prioritize collaboration and stewardship with all motorized groups. From a foundation of shared success in working with all 3 groups, as well as positive feedback from non‐motorized groups and Riverdale residents, the City could consider expansion of the MMU network (and conversely, the NM network), on a route‐specific basis, in the future."

Doesn't seem that quiet places, neighbourhood-safe trails and a hospital trail network are in what they wanted to allow. The survey closes 4 October 2013 at 4:30pm.

September 5, 2013. Busy time. I walked the new Copper Ridge to Porcupine Ridge trail the other day. Great. Obviously I need to adjust some of my web pages and will start this.

I've been waiting for the results of the two trail task forces before going forward in seeing what implications they have for walkers. The current survey asks for feedback, but It's hard to understand the mapping; it seems that by focussing on motorizing trails that the idea of a quiet Hospital Trails network will be compromised. I had hoped there would be usable maps for the current stage of the Riverdale survey but it hasn't happened yet. Unfortunately I couldn't attend the east side trails public meeting.

I started a current public processes table. So much happens that affect walkers and it's almost impossible to keep up. I hope this short list will help. It is a hard list to keep current since often a government process can ask for input and not clearly state next steps or present final results, or the time line drifts. Is the process then still open?

August 31, 2013. Since our White Pass hikes a few weeks ago, I've been organizing my plant inventories on hikes on Yukon PLANTS pages. I see that one day Wildlife Viewing will have more botany as a focus. Walking and plant viewing are such a natural combination.

August 29, 2013. Yukon Outdoor Recreation Network (YORecNet) ... informal forum for organizing outdoor activities.

August 27, 2013. I see at Environment's site is a review of the Environment Act.

At the library today I found notice of Tourism's workshop for Wilderness Tourism Operators; other workshop info can be found here. I've asked for more information. This certainly looks interesting and quite relevant around my Walking tourism initiative.

August 26, 2013. The Yukon government is reviewing its wildlife viewing strategy.

I've started a page Walking and seeing to look at walking and wildlife viewing. It'll be a work in progress, but feel free to comment where I'm missing things or taking a wrong direction.

This is an opportunity for looking at walking-focussed interpretation. It would fit well with walking tourism, creating opportunities for prosperity at the community level. I suspect that as I think further on this, I'll just combine the walking tourism page and the page for wildlife viewing into a single page.

A really nice walking activity is wildflower viewing, however, like walking, botany has no Yukon organization that looks at botanical opportunities here. Yet if one were to think of what to see on a walk in terms of wildlife viewing, plants would rate as a guaranteed item!

August 22, 2013. Thinking about the city's Transportation plan. Seems there's a big push that biking is the solution to active transportation. As I walked home from the market it occurred to me that...

Walking is spontaneous, but biking...did you bike to work? then you have to bike home; if you didn't bike to work, then you can't bike home.

August 13, 2013. Murray Lundburg has a good story and pictures of his hike into the historic Vault Silver Mine.

Returning from our 3 hikes in the White pass area (Go ogle Earth image shows the area) on Sunday, we got to see the glassy headwater lakes Murray talked about. What a walking weekend we had. More to come.

August 11, 2013. Just back from a weekend in Skagway with 3 great hikes: Fraser Lake, Laughton Glacier and International Falls (Feather Peak.) In preparing for this I came across City of Skagway comprehensive trails planning project from 2003. Nice; a community looking ahead.

August 7, 2013. Mosquitoes. Scary stuff. But if you're out there walking, then you've gotta be wondering about these ferocious things attacking you! As one commenter said "Freaking fascinating, but so gross at the same time. A giant, twisty, sucky mouth is all I will think about when I see a mosquito on me now. Ew."

July 25, 2013. I added this link to walking tourism page. I wonder if there's a modern map showing the old traditional trail network throughout the Yukon. Something to look for.

Through the eyes of strangers: a preliminary survey of land use history in the Yukon during the late nineteenth century, Julie Cruikshank, 1974 has a number of references to trails both specific and conceptual.

But he noted that there was a very definite and repeated pattern of land use and that a thorough knowledge of all the trails interconnecting the country was acquired by band members:
" I have been puzzled in some cases how after an Indian had killed game, returned to a camp and given it to another, the receiver could set out and actually find it. The method is this. A network of trails covers the whole country and each hunter knows them all within a restricted area. The killer of game simply describes the trail which passes closest to the meat and indicates at what point and direction the trail is to be left and roughly to what distance. A brief description of the locality concludes the instructions. Very often the man going for the meat knows the country so well he can visualize the location before he starts. In any case, a big piece of moss is left to hang conspicuously in a tree near the meat." (Osgood, 1936, pp. 58-9).

One interesting trail led from the vicinity of Carmacks on the Yukon over the divide into the Nlsl1ng drainage where it passed through the Ptarmigan Heart Valley. It went over a pass into Henry Creek and from there to Red Tail Lake. Crossing the Kluane and Donjek Rivers it led into the mountains to the upper reaches of the White River ... there are branches of the trail leading to Kluane Lake, Aishihik, and so on. In travelling over portions of this trail we saw that it had been used enough to wear a deep path" ((Johnson and Raup, 1964, p. 196).

The real genius of Bloomberg's plan to convince you to take the stairs. As I said in the Transportation Plan submission, active transportation will work if the city can make walking attractive.

July 19, 2013. New map that I made for the Transportation Management Demand Plan's desire to get people out of their cars. To me, that means walking, but that's the focus of this site. If I was walking to work I'd want to know the fastest routes and the more interesting alternatives. To the right is a first draft, discussed in my Transportation Demand Management Plan submission.

July 18, 2013. What makes a successful place? Replace the word 'place' by 'trail' as you read this.

July 16, 2013. There are three events that I'd like to address with a walking perspective. I apologize for lumping this together but the timing of city processes seems to make it unavoidable.

- Wednesday noon hour council meeting about planning in the Mountainview – Range Road area.

Mountainview – Range Road trails This is my web page looking at the upcoming development in the Mountainview – Range Road area from a walker's perspective; there's an important part of Whitehorse's walking opportunities being looked at by planners. Did I capture some of its importance?

- Wednesday evening meeting with the Transportation Demand Management Plan.

Transportation Demand Management Plan This is a walker's input into the city's Transportation Demand Management Plan. The plan could end up being based more on active transportation, paved trails and roads and buses, and less on the importance of recreational walking. However, I believe recreational walking is key to the city's culture of walking. We'll see what transpires!

- Lastly, the city just signed a MOU with Yukon Tourism.

Tourism and walking I've been looking at how to approach the opportunities offered by walking tourism for a while and just as I had it ready, the City signed an agreement with Tourism Yukon. It's a complicated topic looking at the formal side of the tourism industry. Is it possible that the tourism opportunities for recreational walking will fall below the horizon of tourism focus?

July 15, 2013. With today's new MOU between the city and the Yukon government announced, I'll break the link to Tourism and walking til I make sure it reflects the new city approach.

The important difference between a public space and a 'common' "This means we must stop sprawling out and make better use of our existing developed places, especially by reinvesting in older city neighborhoods and taking advantage of opportunities to improve and complete sprawling, isolated newer suburbs with more walkable places." This seems to address my submission to the City of Whitehorse's Transportation Demand Management Plan. To be posted here in the next day I hope.

July 13, 2013. Moderate-intensity walking timed just right might help protect against Type 2 diabetes. 15-minute walks taken after meals helped curb risky rise in blood sugar

Same beat set to different tunes changes walkers' pace

New concept of physical literacy has parents wondering if they need to teach their kids how to play now, too. Surprise, it seems parents are a role model for kids! There's a lot here about sport, not so much about being active outdoors. Walking is noncompetitive, fun, healthy, easy to do. It could be a simple goal governments aim for in thinking of a healthy population.

It seems that raising active kids hits the news often: 6 ways to get your kids off the couch and onto hiking trails. It would seem we're lucky and don't need to go to the Rockies to work on this!

July 12, 2013. Phew! Finally I've posted a start of Tourism and walking. A tourism niche concept.

Speaking of tourism and walking, take a look at this year's Hay Walking Festival.

July 8, 2013. Is being able to walk around your city a right?

July 6, 2013. What are others doing about trying to focus their community on walking?

Imagine that the $100,000 proposed for landscaping the Canada Games centre was used for a rock wall that didn't need to be cut and watered for ever. Don't let trees block the view from inside the pool.

What would $100,000 build if it was targeted towards a Spook Creek parkette as part of linking our 5 City centre loop trails?

July 5, 2013. Walking is not really optional in the physiological sense. So, can you get your kids to walk? This is the question. Katy also has a post Save Your Knees: Hiking Tutorial.

July 4, 2013. As I look at the role of walking in our tourism strategy, I found myself wanting to know just what walking opportunities were featured throughout the Yukon — that is, looking at what a Whitehorse walker might want to know as they travelled around here. So I've started a community walking page. It is definitely a first draft!

The City is holding a Transportation Demand Management Plan. It would seem that a focus on creating a "Walking Culture" should be integral to this plan. Two further background documents are Whitehorse Moves, a community transportation workshop from 2002; and Canada Walks (Case Study: City of Whitehorse) where city staff said:

  • We have invested significantly in active transportation infrastructure, now we want to see a shift from recreational walking to walking for Active Transportation.
  • We are looking for an outside critique on what we have accomplished, what our strengths are and what we need to improve on if we want to attain a vision of a more walkable, sustainable community.
  • We want to
    • Learn how to better utilize our existing paths and trails.
    • Engage community groups in promoting active transportation.
    • Integrate walking policy into key documents and plans."

June 29, 2013. Lightning Safety Week: June 23-29, 2013

June 28, 2013. Sport Tourism is defined as: any activity in which people are attracted to a particular location as a sport event participant, an event spectator, or to attend sport attractions or business meetings. YCB is no longer the lead agency for Sport Tourism but continues to support Sport Yukon's activities to position Yukon as a desirable sport event destination.( Yukon Convention Bureau Annual report, 2012-13)

June 25, 2013. Most cities don't need innovation offices. They often focus on short-term projects instead of long-term change. Interesting. Does Whitehorse have an Innovation Office? Do we need one? Is it a function of the Sustainability department, or as it's now called, Environmental Sustainability.

June 15, 2013. 2013-2015 City of Whitehorse Strategic Plan. Interesting reading. Looks like we need to get walking declared a sport if we are to get the Whitehorse focussed on the idea of being a walking destination.

June 12, 2013. Missed this. Mayor Curtis proclaimed the week of June 3 to 9, 2013 to be Walking Week in the City of Whitehorse. I heard there was to be a Walking Week but assumed I'd see some stuff celebrating it. Maybe next year?

June 10-16, 2013 is Tourism Week in Canada. I heard a local panel discussion on the radio today talking about the changes in our visitors — younger, less structured travel. I look at Yukon government's tourism site and see a focus on touring the territory. I suspect many tourists are actually heading to Alaska. It's my opinion that if we want tourists to stay longer in Whitehorse we have to give them things to do. The recent exit survey noted that people want more things to do. Someone who comes and walks could have a great visit. They'd have driven or flown here. They'd still need accommodations, food, gifts. They'd likely attend art's events, have a drink, maybe even rent a vehicle, or a bike or canoe for a day or so.

What else? They'd probably return to do more. I see that there's a tourism town hall meeting on June 13 at Kwanlin Dun Cultural Centre. Preregister.

And the beauty of walking infrastructure is it mostly benefits residents, it doesn't require a lot of on-going upkeep. It does provide jobs in sustainable trail design.

June 10, 2013. The things one stumbles across reading about walking: The horrifying inequality that plagues Ohio students' routes to school.

Edward Rutherford and walking, a pedestrian pursuit (Skip til about 1:35) Lots of good information on walkable cities, on the impact on health, on providing opportunities to linger, to meet, to permit serendipity.

Why Toronto is putting pedestrians first.

June 9, 2013. I wonder how walking will be addressed.

Contract Award – Transportation Demand Management Plan A Request for Proposals was issued for the preparation of a Transportation Demand Management Plan. The objectives of the plan are to:

  • Reduce single occupancy vehicle trips throughout the city;
  • Reduce greenhouse gas emissions caused by transportation;
  • Increase transit use, walking, cycling, winter-active commuting, and car-pooling;
  • Encourage sustainable transportation; and
  • Reduce demand for infrastructure associated with vehicle travel.

The plan is intended to provide actionable recommendations for new and existing policies, programs, infrastructure, and incentives that encourage more sustainable transportation choices. It is also intended to engage partners and stakeholders and encourage support for these initiatives. (minutes, City Operations Committee May 21, 2013)

June 8, 2013. Making the most of Kent's countryside and coast Fascinating what this area gets to have in their plan. Well worth skimming, then comparing to the Yukon River East Side Trail Task Force and its mandate of making motorized trails. Sigh. Really, look at their walking page!

I've merged my Walks with others and my Marathons and events pages into one Walks with others page. I'm also updating the 5 city centre loop trails page and a few others.

June 7, 2013. Geocaching boom fuels new field of tourism for savvy promoters. This is from Ed whom I mentioned I met at Paddy's Pond. Some tourists are on a budget that precludes spending much money. But each tourist who comes and enjoys their stay is an ambassador. And is a low-spending tourist better than no tourist?

I'm still reorganizing the site with the harder part being clearing up the Lobby for better walking part. Today it's the A walker's point of viewpage.

June 4, 2013. I continue to wonder what visitors to Whitehorse think of walking here. I skimmed a Walking Tourism Study for West Cork region in Ireland. Lots of interesting things were we ever to value walking as a tourism asset! I did meet a tourist from Ohio yesterday who was out in Paddy's Pond looking for a geocache. They were spending 4 days in Whitehorse, then going to Alaska til September. A traveller with discretionary time, choosing to spend it elsewhere.

Bear with me as I continue to consolidate ideas on the site. Sadly I need to break links and previous naming as I clean up.

June 3, 2013. I continue with the revamp of the site to more clearly show the walking resource and advocacy sides.

The Friends of McIntyre Creek and the Yukon Conservation Society are partnering this summer on a signage project to promote environmentally responsible use of trails in Middle McIntyre Creek.
There will be a meeting, 5:30 pm on June 4 at the YCS Office (302 Hawkins), to look at maps of Middle McIntyre Creek and begin to identify potential locations for interpretive signs and directional and regulatory signs. If you're a trail user in the area please join us - your local knowledge will help make this project a success. Contact the Project Manager, Christina Macdonald, at ycswild@ycs.yk.ca or 668-5678.

June 1, 2013. As I examine the travelYukon website, I wonder if they shouldn't offer those on a low budget and car-less some options.

May 30, 2013. Walking the path of a tornado is an interesting treatment of interpreting a walk. Puts the power of a meteorological event into something we can try to understand.

I'm trying again to simply website structure, to make it easier to access the resources. I've started on the Walking improvements needed page. I want to separate the information for those looking for a walk (tourist or resident) from the information for those who want to make changes happen (advocacy.) It comes down to how I treat City information.

Another focus: Yukon Tourism has a travel Yukon website. I'd like to try and get the site to address those visitors who might be happy coming to the Yukon and walking in their host communities.

May 27, 2013. For those following city processes, they're updating the Procedures By-law and the deadline is noon today.

May 25, 2013. Skookum Jim Friendship Center is offering a DARE TO TREAD - Women of Wisdom Hiking Program — see Walks with others.

May 22, 2013. We're almost home and I was looking at Istanbul, thinking about what walkability means. Then, out of the blue came Annotation 17 from my birthday present last year: What are the worlds' most walkable cities? This will certainly be a good start to my walkability look at Istanbul. It seems to agree that a walkable community is one that is interesting to walk, not a chore.

And, as our varying greenspace user groups grow, here's a peek at a New York solution: The pedestrian–cyclist armistice. A bilateral, 10-point resolution to end the decades-long conflict between walkers and bikers.

May 21, 2013. Children driven around too much, Canadian report suggests. Active Healthy Kids Canada annual report card assigns a "D" for active transportation. What's up in Whitehorse?

May 15, 2013. Walk the year.

May 9, 2013. I updated the Walking Festivals page.

May 2, 2013. As we look ahead to the Istanbul part of our trip, you can sense our focus besides getting out and walking: Delicious Istanbul: How to (Really) Enjoy Prince's Islands.

May 1, 2013. Here in Turkey, we see signs of workers marching to show their solidarity. Also, looking internationally, we see no Whitehorse participation in Jane's Walks this year (yet?). But tomorrow we're heading to another part of Turkey and will host a Jane's Walk in Cappadocia. More on this later.

April 30, 2013. From Joan: An interesting site with an interesting trail model to explore, maintained by the Wells and area Trails Society: Wells Barkerville Trails. And for those either looking for a walking holiday or wanting to see an interesting walking website: The walking partnership. And one more thing, a TED talk: Nilofer Merchant: Got a meeting? Take a walk.

April 22, 2013. Don't forget to do the City's Bicycle By-law Survey. With the city's focus on having our trails become mountain bike trails, perhaps it's time to focus on a code of ethics. Bikes racing downhill on some of the twisty mountain trails, such as on Grey Mountain have a real potential for a bad accident with walkers. Better awareness of the shared nature of trails seems in order. This survey is a good place to start this process.

April 18, 2013. I was reminded today that another walking need is places that offer easy, interesting family-accommodating hikes. Places families can make an easy outing to where their kids, of all ages, will be engaged, with a variety of hike offerings that allow quitting spots when a kid just isn't having fun.

April 16, 2013. Only 3 weeks for Jane's walks. Does anyone have ideas they want to pursue. Better get going on it!! Jane's walk:Whitehorse or see their facebook page.

April 14, 2013. As Hillcrest goes through our neighbourhood planning and as our community association tries to grasp the options, I stumbled on a fascinating community engagement document: From inspiration to action: Implementing projects to support active living.

April 12, 2013. Can walking be enough to reduce obesity in America?

Walking might be all your body needs to reach and maintain physical fitness if you routinely walk far enough and at an effective pace. Once the exercise seems easy — meaning you barely break a sweat or experience pulse increases, or you stop noticing any physical improvement but haven't reached your goals — increasing your distance, frequency or intensity can help. Even if walking seems sufficient, you may decide to branch out and try other forms of exercise.

7 reasons to try aquafit: You don't have to be a senior citizen to get a great workout from aquafit.

The music was great, the instructor kept everybody challenged and the hour flew by because I was genuinely having fun.

April 11, 2013. New Chicago Plan: Pedestrians Come First. " The streets of Chicago belong to the city, not to automobilists... We're not talking about necessarily closing roads down, making them just for pedestrians," says Janet Attarian, the department's complete streets project director. "It's about really understanding how you layer safety and placemaking and supporting economic development into this process of designing your roadway." Is this true for Whitehorse? Think of crossing the Alaska Highway, Hamilton Blvd., 2nd Avenue, ...

For snowy/icy trail walking, ice grips are indispensable, especially with spring's icy hilly trail sections. I use these Lee Valley ones all winter/spring:

I've updated the Marathons, walks and events page; I've also re-organized the side-panel index to the site.

Under the livable city concept, this is great: An exercise in musical cooperation on a sidewalk swing set. A perk for walkers.

April 6, 2013. A Subway map for pedestrians and a commentary on it. This is neat and follows my idea that more people would walk if they knew distances. I'd like to try a Whitehorse-focussed version of this. Stay tuned.

April 5, 2013. With Hillcrest having a series of neighbourhood meetings about our neighbourhood's future, I thought I'd try to make a shortcut to Hillcrest issues and opportunities that I've compiled on this site. It's a work in progress but check out this Hillcrest page.

April 4, 2013. A goal is have events like this Tree Tour.

March 26, 2013. I've been remiss in keeping up to date. I have been waiting on the two trail task forces results to see what importance walking will have on the two task forces. I feel I'm taking a breath before the next round of city things hits, many Hillcrest based: Trail Task Forces, Zoning, Planning, Highway Trail paving, Tank Farm, Alaska Highway Land Use Corridor, City Trail Committee, Infrastructure, Paddy's Pond Trail ideas....

And there's a new Bicycle survey and Traffic By-law consultation. And following up on unanswered emails re city processes. And thinking about the lecture on healthy communities last night and wondering what the associated conference will come up with and what tangible steps forward Whitehorse will take.

March 15, 2013. From my heading-to-Scalea-Italy kid: Giovanni Visetti: hiking guide and map-maker "We've been searching around for good walks in areas not covered in the Lonely Planet. It would be ideal to have a whitehorsewalks.com for the place we are going to tomorrow. Haven't found that, but did find this guy's site packed with information and maps that perhaps will come in handy elsewhere. Walkers all over world helping other walkers!

March 14, 2013. Canada failing cyclists and pedestrians, UN report finds. See also safe road crossings.

March 9, 2013. Riverfront Trail Closure Notice As part of the shoreline stabilization project, the Riverfront
Trail between Rotary Park and Lambert Street will be closed for approximately three months starting on March 18th. Please follow the various signage put in place to divert traffic.

March 8, 2013. Kill your conference room — The future's in walking and talking

March 3, 2013. I've updated the 5 city centre loop trails page, mostly around status of the Lower Escarpment Trail.

U.K.'s 'Naked Rambler' behind bars, again. Interesting what bugs people.

February 15, 2013. Long, slow walks may beat shorter, higher intensity runs

February 12, 2013. How to walk on ice.

Globe and Mail, letters to editor — Re: Why did the Moose cross the road (Feb. 5) and Hoofing it (letter, Feb. 11): Are the moose doing a study to find out why human beings lay wide strips of pavement across their trails?

February 6, 2013. The link between kids who walk or bike to school and concentration

The invention of jaywalking; Long Island kids beg for a school bus to take them across a dangerous road

February 2, 1013. The cold hard facts of freezing to death.

January 31, 2013. Mercator map puzzle is nothing about walking, but neat none-the-less.

January 28, 2013. Having read Tourism and Visitor Development in Downtown Whitehorse by Main Street Yukon Society, I'm struck by how much walking is an answer to many of its points: "Nature walk or hike" was the most cited activity people did in their Whitehorse visit. "More activities", "less expensive overall" , "Better communication/packaging of activities" and "More attractions open" were among the top ideas that people said would encourage them to stay longer. I wonder who in the city is the new focus on integrating a larger walking trails effort into the Society's vision of a more vibrant city core? Could the 5 Loop Trails approach help?

January 26, 2013. The RPAY walking Challenge. "On the Right Path" is a fun, motivational, walking program where participants will virtually walk the historic Overland Trail from Whitehorse to Dawson City-526 kms. This program is an easy way to keep track of your distance and is designed to get you in the habit of walking. With the hopes that by the time you reach Dawson, you'll keep on walking- or find another activity that you enjoy.

January 23, 2013. I created a walking map distance version of the 5 Loop Trails. Think of walking about 4 km per hour for a moderate pace.

>Read more... Blog archives 2012

Peter
pjl at whitehorsewalks period com